Chapter Fourteen

It was a very private meeting of the COBRA committee. Unusually, there were no junior officials. In addition to the heads of the three UK security services, two elected politicians joined the table- the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Secretary. Two invited American guests filed into the room behind the usual members of the committee. Bringing up the rear was the National Security Adviser, Tom Rice, accompanied by the US Embassy's top CIA official. Mycroft took his seat in his usual place- down the table, next to the GCHQ Director. The only other civil servant in the room, Sir Thomas Weston, the Permanent Secretary of the Cabinet Office, sat to the left of the Cabinet Secretary. If Weston felt particularly nervous, he was doing well to mask it, keeping his head down and perusing the agenda for the meeting. He tried desperately to ignore the tiny microphone that was in the tasteful small brass Help for Heroes lapel badge worn on his pinstriped suit jacket lapel. It had arrived at his home address this morning by special courier with a note insisting that he wear it.

Tom Rice spoke as soon as the participants took their seats, before the formal meeting began- but he had the attention of everyone around the room. The National Security Adviser was a grey haired Afro American man, with an air of gravitas. "Prime Minister, thank you for inviting me to this meeting and allowing me to express my gratitude to you and your officials for saving us all from a very embarrassing situation." His Georgia accent drawled across the table in the Cabinet Office's Briefing Room A. "You will see from the file in front of each of you that has been prepared this morning that we have been forced to cancel the flight project. It is regrettable, but necessary to do so, in light of information that has been brought to our attention just last night. I can only thank the efforts of Mister Holmes and his Security Liaison Team that drew the connection between two pieces of information in the possession of the CIA."

Weston slipped his index finger under the red strip wrapper that sealed the file and marked it "Top Secret". As he snapped the wrapper off, it gave him a nasty paper cut, and he had to fish his handkerchief out of his pocket to stem the flow of blood. As a result, he was a little behind the rest of the table when it came to digesting whatever was in the file.

oOo

Only a mile away, in his suite at the top of the Carlton Tower Hotel, James Moriarty was sitting at the desk with a pair of Bosch headphones on, listening to every word. So far, so good. Holmes was following the script to plan. He found himself wishing that he'd been able to put a camera in the buttonhole badge. Audio was just so annoyingly one dimensional. He heard the sounds of papers being shuffled, then a sharp intake of breath, followed by Weston's soft "what the hell?"

The voice he recognised as the Prime Minister's was the first to speak. "Are you certain about this, gentlemen?" The man's posh boy accent irritated Jim, just as much as it did when he heard it on the television news.

Then the American Texas twang of the CIA officer's voice. "Yes, indeed. I have been reliably informed. But if you want the specifics, I'd like to defer to Mister Holmes, if I may, as he was the one to uncover the plot."

The room stilled. Moriarty heard the firm aristocratic tones of the Ice Man. "Thank you. Prime Minister, as you can see from the data in front of you, a bogus file was placed in the CIA records to suggest that the code was broken by the terrorist cell many months ago. In fact, the flight details were passed by a London-based CIA operative last night, one Robert Nielson. He is fairly junior in the pecking order, but as you can see from the photograph in the file, we understand that he is in the pay of James Moriarty, who was responsible for informing the terrorist cell about the details of the flight. The man in the photograph speaking with Nielson is Sebastian Moran, who works directly with Moriarty and we have issued a warrant for his arrest. The woman who took this photograph is in my custody now and we are processing a significant quantity of incriminating information that is on her camera phone. I believe it will be very revealing about the degree to which Moriarty's network has been recruiting on both sides of the Atlantic. The second sheet in the file lists ten we have identified so far, including three within the CIA. There are more, who will come to light when the bogus file is studied."

"NO!" Jim ripped his headphones off and threw them violently across the suite. They hit the tall vase and a tasteful arrangement of arum lilies and chrysanthemums crashed onto the floor. He then proceeded across the room and kicked the vase until it shattered, then picked up every element of interior-decorated paraphernalia in the room and proceeded to smash them into smithereens.

"No!" An attractive bronze figurine crashed into the bezel cut mirror over the suite's fireplace, cracking it spectacularly.

"No!" A coffee table book of the latest London Fashion Week catwalk stars went sailing across the room to knock a brass standing reading lamp over by the sofa, "no, No, NO!"

When there was nothing portable left to throw, he let out a full throttled "SEBASTIAN!"

The muscular blond had been in the bathroom when the first yell made him put down the magazine he'd been reading. By the third crash, he was out the bathroom door, hands washed and dried. He'd come to recognise the difference between a temper-tantrum and someone actually threatening to harm his boss. This was definitely the former. Always best to let Jim have a chance to release some of the aggro before venturing out. He thought about the bill that the hotel was going to charge when he looked around the suite's living room at a scene of devastation.

"Yes?" It was mildly put. No need to provoke the man. He'd learned not to say things like "calm down." It only enraged Jim more, and generally ended up with Moran serving as a punch-bag for the Irishman. "What's happened?"

"What's happened?! That fecking bastard! Holmes's managed to crack that bloody phone, somehow, and turned Adler into working for his team. I've been had." Jim sounded incredulous. "ME! That ponced up bureaucrat has just served up the truth to the COBRA Committee, and told them all it's a plot by ME!"

Moran was stunned. He could not imagine the innocuous looking man he'd seen in the photos- the three-piece suited civil servant with the receding hairline- ever beating his boss. The man was just so…non-descript.

Jim's eyes were wide with rage. "Moran, you get on the phone and get that red haired bed-warmer of Adler's back into my clutches. I'll skin her alive first, and then send the shoes made out of her to Irene bloody Adler, once I get her out his frosty little fingers." He strode up and down the living room floor, his hands making fists. "Oh, and when I get Irenee into my hot hands again…well, it's going to take me weeks to figure out just how slowly I can kill her to pay her back for this."

Then Jim stopped pacing and glared at the sniper. "Look alive, idjit- because your name is on an arrest warrant, so you'll have to get out of the UK fast." The dark haired younger man took a deep breath and then smoothed his suit jacket down and pushed his hair back into place. "Plan B, then. Text alert to every one of the UK lot." He fished out his phone, opened the menu called 'contingency' and in a single keystroke, sent a single word text alert to over thirty people. Then he called his pilot. He'd be out of the country before the COBRA meeting finished. If he felt like it, he might let Moran hitch a ride with him.

oOo

Back in Cabinet Room A, Sir Thomas Weston was sweating. He was making a pretence of taking notes, but finding it hard to manage the shaking in his right hand. His usual careful handwriting was little more than a scrawl of panic. He listened with mounting horror to the tale being told by Holmes, how a link between a woman blackmailer and Moriarty had been uncovered six months before, then her death, which only later was discovered to have been faked. He wondered if it was even remotely possible to remove the lapel mike without being noticed. That's when the phone in his jacket pocket began to vibrate. Four times- an incoming text. He closed his eyes and hoped it wasn't from the person that he least wanted to hear from right now.

"When she re-appeared, we were informed by a source that will have to remain nameless." The Permanent Secretary guessed that Holmes must be referring to his brother. He'd seen the younger Holmes in the company of Irene Adler at the Gilbert Scott bar nearly seven months ago, and had been stupid enough to rag Holmes about it. Mycroft Holmes then described how that same "source" was able to break her cover, unlock the code to her phone, and turn her to working for their side, so that the full extent of the plot could be revealed.

"It is regrettable that we were only able to confirm a direct link between Moriarty and the terrorist cell in the Swat Valley yesterday evening. That was verified overnight by telephone surveillance at GCHQ, which has been tracking the incoming telephony for the terrorist cell. At that point, it became imperative to cancel the flight rather than run the risk of exposure. The considerable expense of the project, however, can now be written off against the detailed information we have received as a result of this operation. It covers far more than just the protagonists in the Flight 007 project."

The file on the table included excerpts from the phone's contents- photographs, recordings and data- "which is proving very helpful in the identification of Moriarty's corrupt officials on both sides of the Atlantic." Weston read the transcript of a call between Irene Adler and James Moriarty, and noticed another sheet covering one from Moriarty to Holmes himself. He tried to control his breathing. Did she have anything on that blasted phone about ME? He could not be sure. He had no idea what Moriarty might have said to her in the attempt to tackle Mycroft Holmes, whether his secret "insider" was still secret or not. A small trickle of sweat seemed to have pooled just at his trousers' waist band. Fortunately, it was in the back, under his jacket. He hoped that his forehead was not too shiny.

Down the table, Elizabeth Ffoukes noticed that the Permanent Secretary looked a little peaky. If she didn't know better, she might have thought he was coming down with the flu that was doing the rounds of Whitehall at the moment. She glanced over at Mycroft who was subjecting the Permanent Secretary to a forensic gaze. She caught Mycroft's eye and nodded, and was rewarded by a smile that touched the man's dark blue eyes but not his lips. She liked Mycroft; the Director General of MI 6 had found some money in her own budget to help out with BondAir, and had tried to play peacemaker some seven months ago when the CIA had been worried about the potential leak of an MOD code. That, combined with an almost pantomime collision of two separate operations at a certain house in Belgravia, had taken both her own diplomatic skills as well as those of Mycroft Holmes to put things right with the CIA. She was just as stunned as the rest of the table to see how the man's pursuit of Irene Adler had come good, just in time. But she did have a head start, as Mycroft had shared with her the contents of the file a couple of hours before the meeting started. Time to play my part.

Now she caught the eye of the PM and raised her eyebrows in a gentle request for the chance to speak next. He nodded briefly. "Mrs Ffoukes, you have a point you wish to make?"

"Prime Minister, we are all extremely grateful for the willingness of Mister Holmes to do what was necessary to trap Moriarty and reveal the weakness in the BondAir plan before it was too late." She looked across the table at Mycroft. She gave him a genuine smile and a tiny nod of appreciation. "However, and I hate to do this, but I really need to draw your attention to one specific line in the transcript excerpts from the recorded call in the file, the one on page 17, between Mister Holmes and Moriarty." Papers were shuffled and pages turned over. "Moriarty says that he has 'eyes and ears in that meeting, so just watch what you say and how you say it, because Daddy will be listening.' That means that someone in the room now is providing information to this man."

A chilled silence fell in the room. Mycroft cleared his throat softly. "I believe I can answer that question now." He pushed his chair back and stood up, then walked around the table until he was standing beside the Permanent Secretary. "Sir Thomas, would you care to remove the small metal badge on your lapel, please?" The Old Etonian's hand was shaking as he complied, dropping the badge into the outstretched palm of his former schoolmate.

Mycroft smiled icily, "Thank you." He then opened his palm and sent the badge falling onto the floor where he smashed it with the heel of his shoe. "And now your phone, please." Wordlessly, the civil servant reached into his pocket and handed it over to Holmes, who scanned the single word text from an unidentified number:

10.27 ICARUS*

As Mycroft read this, he politely continued speaking to the seated man, "you might like to leave the room now." Weston gathered his papers and scuttled out, without meeting the astonished eye of his boss, the Cabinet Minister. Mycroft calmly returned to his seat, turning the phone off and slipping it into his pocket. Looking down the table, he then said quietly "Feel free to continue the discussion now without fear of being overheard."

The American Embassy's CIA chief just started chuckling. "So Moriarty's been listening to us? Well, shit, you Brits just know how to keep your cool. If that happened in the Oval Office, we'd have had the guy dragged out in handcuffs, and he sure wouldn't be walking at the end of it. Don't you guys ever get pissed at anybody?"

The Prime Minister gave him a pointed stare. "Of course we get angry, Mister Rice. But right now, we are angry enough to want to do something about it. So, what's the plan? How are we going to win against this Moriarty?"

It was Elizabeth Ffoukes who answered first. "We are already working on it, sir." Having been tipped off by Mycroft at 8 o'clock, she'd pulled together a dossier. She pulled out copies from her briefcase and handed them around. "We've had this man on our radar for some time. This is the latest update." She gave them a half a minute to scan the paper.

The NSA Adviser's forehead furrowed as he read. He muttered under his breath, "A computer code?"

Mycroft answered. "Yes, sir. It is his latest attempt to subvert the attempt by both IBM and the EU project to create a new neuromorphic architecture. We also have reason to believe that the Trojan horse programme identified also has significance for most of the current legacy systems in use today. Apparently, he is auctioning the code to activate it to the highest bidder."

The Georgian was blunt. "So, who's going to take this guy out?"

The Prime Minister paled. The idea of discussing an assassination, even of a criminal, around a boardroom table in the Cabinet Office was not acceptable, even if the person who would have taken the minutes had left the room.

He was rescued by Holmes. "Unfortunately, that is not an option. If it was, then any one of the thirty other countries in which he operates in addition to yours and ours would have already done it. Those security services with fewer scruples and looser legal constraints that ours would have killed him years ago. But, he has a fail-safe plan to ensure no one ever tries that. If he is killed, then extreme punitive action will be taken- by our estimation this is most likely to be a dirty bomb in a number of major metropolitan centres in the country irresponsible enough to attempt such an action."

Rice growled, "And how credible is such a threat?"

"Very. James Moriarty has been in some way implicated with just about every major successful assassination and terrorist plot in the past decade and he is regularly consulted by every major organised crime network in the world. He has access to the weapons, people on the ground to do it, and motive, if any government attempts to stop him." Mycroft now passed around another sheet of paper. "This covers the headline events in a dossier over 200 pages long."

The NSA Adviser had not seen this sheet; there wasn't time during their pre-meeting. As his eyes picked out the key headlines that related to US activity, he nodded. "Okay, Mister Holmes, you certainly have my attention. Now what are you planning to do about this guy?"

"I'm working on it, I can assure you. What is on the phone will help. But, I do know that it will take time and stealth to counter this threat. And co-operation on both sides of the Atlantic is a good place to start."

"Well, you've got it. For certain. The special relationship is going to need us both to address this level of threat. I'll brief the US Ambassador here in London shortly, and the President when I get back to Washington tomorrow."

The Prime Minister decided it was time to reassert his control over the meeting. "Thank you, Mister Holmes. I am sure that our American allies will now recognise the considerable advantages of working together on this mutual threat. This item will remain on future agendas for this committee until further notice. Now shall we move onto the situation in the Middle East, please?"

Author's note: *Icarus in Greek legend was the man who strapped on wings to fly but they melted when he got too near the sun. Moriarty's dark angels will soon be discovering that their wings will melt when their relationship with him is discovered….